If you're putting data on the Web, you likely need to compress it first.

By Tom Snyder

As businesses provide more data to the Internet, one common administrative task required for preparing the data is to compress the data into either a zip or a tar file.

The IBM i UNIX environment called QShell provides many capabilities, including the jar and tar commands used to compress data. To enter QShell, go to the command line and type STRQSH to bring up a command line in the UNIX environment. Here, you can try out your commands interactively to check the syntax and behavior of the commands that you are executing. I primarily use QShell for operations that I want to perform in the IFS. In this TechTip, I will compress a text file named test.xml that I have stored in a public folder off of the root directory of the IFS.

Network management software offers IT professionals access to their peers' best practices while providing a free basket of first-rate tools.

By Chris Smith

When aviator Steve Fossett disappeared on a solo flight over Nevada in 2007, searchers had little to go on. Someone (billionaire Richard Branson comes to mind) came up with the bright idea that if the search for Fossett were crowdsourced--i.e., if enough people were brought into the effort to look for his airplane--eventually someone would find him. Needless to say, not everyone owns a private plane and belongs to the Civil Air Patrol, so it's tough to re-create a World War II scenario in which thousands of planes fly over the suspect territory and one lucky aviator shouts over the radio, "Look! Down there! I think I see it!"